D&D 5E The New D&D Book: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything!

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The new D&D book has been revealed, and it is Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, "a magical mixture of rules options for the world's greatest roleplaying game." The 192-page book is due out November 17th, with standard and alternate covers, and contains more subclasses, spells, character options, group patrons, and rules. Oh, and psionics!

Cover art is by Magali Villeneuve

WHAT WONDERFUL WITCHERY IS THIS?

A magical mixture of rules options for the world's greatest roleplaying game.

The wizard Tasha, whose great works include the spell Tasha’s hideous laughter, has gathered bits and bobs of precious lore during her illustrious career as an adventurer. Her enemies wouldn’t want these treasured secrets scattered across the multiverse, so in defiance, she has collected and codified these tidbits for the enrichment of all.

• EXPANDED SUBCLASSES. Try out subclass options for every Dungeons & Dragons class, including the artificer, which appears in the book.
• MORE CHARACTER OPTIONS. Delve into a collection of new class features and new feats, and customize your character’s origin using straightforward rules for modifying a character’s racial traits.
• INTRODUCING GROUP PATRONS. Whether you're part of the same criminal syndicate or working for an ancient dragon, each group patron option comes with its own perks and types of assignments.
• SPELLS, ARTIFACTS & MAGIC TATTOOS. Discover more spells, as well as magic tattoos, artifacts, and other magic items for your campaign.
• EXPANDED RULES OPTIONS. Try out rules for sidekicks, supernatural environments, natural hazards, and parleying with monsters, and gain guidance on running a session zero.
• A PLETHORA OF PUZZLES. Ready to be dropped into any D&D adventure, puzzles of varied difficulty await your adventurers, complete with traps and guidance on using the puzzles in a campaign.

Full of expanded content for players and Dungeon Masters alike, this book is a great addition to the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Baked in you'll find more rule options for all the character classes in the Player's Handbook, including more subclass options. Thrown in for good measure is the artificer class, a master of magical invention. And this witch's brew wouldn't be complete without a dash of added artifacts, spellbook options, spells for both player characters and monsters, magical tattoos, group patrons, and other tasty goodies.

Here's the alternate cover:

UPDATE! An online event called D&D Celebration from September 18th-20th will be hosted by Elle Osili-Wood, which is "an epic live event with panels, gameplay, & previews of the book!" See the video in the Tweet below!

Gather your party and join the adventure at  D&D Celebration 2020, an online gaming event open to fans all over the world!

Celebrate the release of  Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden  with a weekend of Icewind Dale–themed virtual play sessions and help us create the biggest virtual tabletop roleplaying game event ever! Fans will also get the chance to preview some content from  Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the forthcoming book featuring massive rules options, subclasses, and more for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Watch featured play sessions with D&D luminaries and learn something new with a slate of panels led by the D&D design team and community.


UPDATE! Check out the Nerdarchy site for some previews.

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Has, Well… Everything for 5E D&D

The follow up to 2017’s Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, on Nov. 17, 2020 fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons upcoming Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything must indeed possess powerful …

nerdarchy.com

UPDATE! Other news items around the web about this book:

With D&D's Next Rulebook, Character Creation Will Never Be the Same

Although Dungeons & Dragons’ fifth edition has added as many classes, races, and rules as it has since it first began, for the most part, the way players create characters has stayed the same. You pick a race, that race defines certain things about you, and so on. But the game’s next sourcebook...

io9.gizmodo.com

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything coming in November, brings new ways to personalize your characters

Wizards of the Coast has announced its next D&D book! Entitled Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, this rules expansion follows up Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and will be available on November 17th. Providing both players and DMs with the tools to level up their games, the 192 page tome will be...

gamingtrend.com

Dungeons & Dragons Announces New Book and Fall Event - IGN

The D&D team reveals an online community event in September and a new sourcebook soon to follow.

www.ign.com

D&D's next expansion, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, adds new subclasses and racial customization

Dungeons & Dragons is getting its biggest rules expansion in three years, courtesy of one powerful witch. In November, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything will hit shelves, offering D&D players several new subclasses, some exciting new spells, and a new way to create characters that’s fully...

www.syfy.com

 

[OblivionDrive]

Just keeping the 'Bloodied' condition would have opened SO much design space...

Thankfully, that's not all that hard to homebrew back in with minimal rough edges. Just give them some legendary style reaction abilities when they drop below half HP and boom.

 

[Kurotowa]

Player backlash? To quote the original Incredibles movie, "When everyone's super, no one will be."

You're quoting the villain of the movie. Which is usually a good sign that he's, you know, wrong. Honestly now.

 

[Charlaquin]

And the frantic publishing pace was pretty insane. 4e would probably have kept going longer if they hadn't released basically one new book a month for so long... It overwhelmed the market and probably over extended their ressources... it's why the Seeker and Runepriest felt so half-baked.

Very true! The slower release schedule is another one of those not-design things that is contributing to 5e’s success.

Just keeping the 'Bloodied' condition would have opened SO much design space...

They kind of did, they just don’t call it that. The section on describing the effects of damage says half HP is the point where a character starts showing visible signs of injury, and there are a few effects that trigger on half HP, like swarms’ damage decreasing. It is woefully underutilized as a mechanic though.

 

[DnD Warlord]

They kind of did, they just don’t call it that. The section on describing the effects of damage says half HP is the point where a character starts showing visible signs of injury, and there are a few effects that trigger on half HP, like swarms’ damage decreasing. It is woefully underutilized as a mechanic though.

Then why not keep the bloodied condition...

 

[Maxperson]

Very true! The slower release schedule is another one of those not-design things that is contributing to 5e’s success.

There's a big difference between 1 book a month and 3 books of player options(including Tasha's) in 6 years. Plenty of space in between, like 1 book a year, to use up without saturating the market.

 

[Undrave]

I mean, other than skill challenges (which took many iterations to get... let's be honest, just barely passable, but is still great idea) and 4e monster design principles (which, again, took a few iterations to become truly great) what design choices are those? 5e improved upon the idea of rituals, and better balanced classes without making them symmetrical in design... and they're even finally getting around to the idea that feats are the superior multi-classing.

What else is missing? The W-☠☠☠

Yes that... but the healing mechanic of the person being healed spending ressources, healing surge and their interplay with environmental challenges and rituals, the bloodied condition, many of the minor conditions, the 'Brutal' and 'Defensive' and 'High Crit' qualities for weapons, marking mechanics, tactically interesting fighters, clearly designed combat roles baked into the class (the Monk would feel better if it was more focused on being a striker and not some weird 'lockdown the caster, sometimes, a few rounds' emergent role) and I would argue they gutted the concept of rituals instead of expending them more into something more core to the experience... the Primal power source being its own distinct thing... Divine and Arcane characters feeling more different... the interesting cosmology filled with myths and adventure hooks...

The Warden class, the Avenger, the Shardmind, the Wilden... the Power Point psionic classes...

And a bunch of little details I could go on...

Also, I somehow had missed that the psi talent die was considered unpopular and (probably) dropped and THAT is my lone main stress point with this book. I'm a huge psionics fan and I know they're never gonna make a system that makes everyone happy. I like the toolbox framework of things like the Mystic or the 2e version vs just "psi-flavored" subclasses and I thought I was never gonna be happy with newer interpretations until I saw the psi die and maaaan, I lit up when that happened. FINALLY! A new design framework that isn't toolbox-y but gives me a bit of a feeling of uniqueness and power surges/gambling! Woo! I even made sure to fill out the survey for that one to tell them how much I liked it.

...so of course we probably won't get it

I know! It was really disheartening to me to learn that a novel mechanic got shot down for being 'too complicated' or 'a whole new mechanic to learn'... like, it's not even that hard?! It's just for those classes! It seems people just wanted Psionic flavoured magic after all...

Thankfully, that's not all that hard to homebrew back in with minimal rough edges. Just give them some legendary style reaction abilities when they drop below half HP and boom.

You also have class features that could trigger when you're bloodied, or when your allies are bloodied, or when your target has the bloodied condition. Certain enemies got SUPER nasty is they hit you while bloodied, meaning you'd push the Cleric to spend healing earlier than usual. It was a 'hook' to attach a ton of mechanic on that was much easier than 'half max HP' because it was also something a character would know in fiction!

 

[Oofta]

Must ... not ... engage ... in ... edition ... wars ... gah!!!

All I can say is that as someone who was very active in LFR organizing a couple of game days in a major metro area, there was a burst of popularity at first, even with the rejection of the game by some people that went to PathFinder. But over the lifetime of the edition the popularity declined rapidly year after year. My own (admittedly biased) experience was that if 5E had not been released 90% or more of the players that I either played with or was in contact with were ready to give up on D&D. The only ones who wanted to continue had never played another edition. That had never happened with any previous edition.

But it's all water under the bridge now. I'm happy with 5E and I'm curious to see what they're doing with the new book even if I don't use every option. Sounds like we may be getting some of those "more modular" features they were hoping to add in when the game was in development.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

There's a big difference between 1 book a month and 3 books of player options(including Tasha's) in 6 years. Plenty of space in between, like 1 book a year, to use up without saturating the market.

I like the player-side release schedule. It keeps the focus on the game and off the character build without allowing the options to get stale.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Also, I somehow had missed that the psi talent die was considered unpopular and (probably) dropped and THAT is my lone main stress point with this book. I'm a huge psionics fan and I know they're never gonna make a system that makes everyone happy. I like the toolbox framework of things like the Mystic or the 2e version vs just "psi-flavored" subclasses and I thought I was never gonna be happy with newer interpretations until I saw the psi die and maaaan, I lit up when that happened. FINALLY! A new design framework that isn't toolbox-y but gives me a bit of a feeling of uniqueness and power surges/gambling! Woo! I even made sure to fill out the survey for that one to tell them how much I liked it.

...so of course we probably won't get it

The Psi Die isn't necessarily gone. Per a quote from the NerdArchy article:

Psionics! The Aberrant Mind is just one of the psionic themed subclasses from UA. Along with a few others, these psionic subclasses use a modifed version of the playtest mechanics, which Crawford described as “evolved.”

 

[OblivionDrive]

The Psi Die isn't necessarily gone. Per a quote from the NerdArchy article:

Psionics! The Aberrant Mind is just one of the psionic themed subclasses from UA. Along with a few others, these psionic subclasses use a modifed version of the playtest mechanics, which Crawford described as “evolved.”

Yeah, I saw that when I was reading through the articles. I just... I'm not hopeful

I was fine with psi point toolkits. I was fine with psi-flavored + feats + psi die. I just don't know what they would have evolved it TO if people said that they found the mechanic "too much bookkeeping" or "too hard to learn."

I mean, if it was the "max roll powers you down, min roll powers you up" thing people had the most issue with (and I still don't see what's hard to grasp about that idea) maaaaaaaaaybe they kept the die mechanic but just changed it to a static die that scales with level and something more baseline that people already know like "Ability Mod + X uses per day?" I dunno. It just feels like they'd rather water it down than take even minor chances with mechanics that have cool flavor.